We shouldn’t be forced to use toxic platforms that track and profile us in order to get public information.
Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube track and profile their users so that they can target advertising towards them.
Their business models fuel online harms by pushing more and more extreme content to users. Despite this, these platforms are one of the primary ways that government departments share public information.
Tell your MP to support the EDM calling on the UK Government to ensure that all public sector social media content is published on open, decentralised and federated platforms!
#socialMedia #UK #politics #UKpolitics #fediverse #initiative
Whatever happened to RSS feeds…
When covid started I didn’t know anything about it. I wasn’t on Twitter or reddit or Facebook. I was in college, doing that and had a baby. We watched cartoons and when they slept I’d read and write. I had no idea until no one was on the road or at Walmart with me. I had no idea how to even get information about what was happening, so I went to the county website and found nothing. my professors stopped livestreaming and sent helpful information about it the same week so I got it.
Turned out the city had a Facebook page that people were getting their information from. And there was also a Twitter.
Then my kid gets to be school aged. The fucking school used Facebook and twitter to communicate with parents. I missed so many programs, and lacked information about everything that happened there.
Fucking hate it.
Damn… We should really start fighting for a world where people making the option of not using digital technologies are respected, as written in the Off-Punk Manifesto…
This means directly targeting classical liberalism and the governments collusion with capital. Simply getting them to use mastodon or whatever does mot target the root cause.
We have 2 mobile operating systems, both under the control of American big tech oligarchs. That is not freedom. It is the illusion of choice. It is technological tyranny. Most government services require these OS’s exclusively to use many public apps and services.
Most governments are allowed to image your devices and back them up to some police state server indefinitely because you cross a border. That is not freedom or democracy. It is technological tyranny. Companies are allowed to sell you a device and brick it or completely change the value proposition without consequence. The ability to exert control over your purchased hardware and software should not even be an option for any government or corporation.
Woah, I never thought about it that way, but you’re right. It’s not just about the freedom to stop using that technology, it’s also about the freedom to stop being monitored by it, right?
Dang, that sucks.
You should really pay closer attention to the news…
Did you watch the news much when you were in your 20’s? Because i didn’t, hell I still don’t. Plus taking 50 credit hours with a little toddler baby raising them alone took every bit of my time.
I don’t watch TV but I read the news on the news websites on my phone.
If I wouldn’t have a phone I would subscribe to a newspaper.
That’s cool. My reading time was divided around the 6 college textbooks I was reading at one time and being judged on my comprehension of the texts, and as I was paying for the chance to be judged, I took it pretty seriously. I didn’t even have a news app at that age, besides the newsbreak factory install with my phone that I immediately deleted.
…yeah?
What did you watch CNN, BBC? In your 20’s you were doing that?
I don’t think I watched what I wanted on TV for more than an hour a week in my 20s.
I mean it was on every news station and website in existence, non-stop for months before the cities were emptied. It was literally the biggest news in the world.
If you didn’t have time to watch the news you probably wouldn’t have seen it on any social media or official outlet either.
But I digress, as your main point remains correct, governments should have sovereign platforms for which to communicate with the public that doesn’t require users to submit ID and facial scans and phone numbers, and click the boxes with fire extinguishers. They should just be able to read it.
They don’t need to choose a platform. They have to be forced to put all public-facing communication onto their website without exception. From there, they or anyone else who wants to can copy it to any platform there is.
Governments will move when these platforms have the reach as the toxic ones do. They’re not on Facebook and Twitter for fun. They’re on them because it’s incredibly easy to reach people without much hassle. The toxicity they can generate is just a happy byproduct for them.
It is important to make distinctions:
- as politicians they can use and campaign in whatever platform they want.
- As Government officials, they must be forced by legislation to use a Government Federated instance so everyone has access to their communication and no Big Tech oligarch has the power to decide how these messages reach the population.
Being government, they ate uniquely positioned to create reach by moving to ethical platforms anyway and forcing the public to follow.
They don’t have to move. They can simply use both.
Is this the same UK with the Online Safety Act whose main purpose (in the sense of “the purpose of a system is what it does”) is to legislate all forums and platforms not run by big tech companies out of existence? I somehow don’t think that country in particular will do that, but best of luck to the ORG!
It kinda depends on if its additional or if its a required thing. The government does have an onus to get the word out but it should not be the official channel.
I appreciate the peertube link for this video.
Yah, my local (all Republicans) county board shares their videos on YouTube only and we all know why that sucks.
If it is illegal to block people from politicians from their xitter account, why are they able to turn off comments on their youtube accounts?
Ethics and morals according to whom? There are plenty of toxic people & groups on the Fediverse. We don’t need defederation getting in the way of things. What makes the most sense is encouraging governments to move their sites over to providers that integrate open protocols. That way the information on their sites can make it onto feeds and it’s no another social platform they need to juggle.
